“The repeated blows, most of which were quite deep, caused massive internal bleeding. It was intraabdominal and intrathoracic. There were a few superficial cuts on the anterior surface of the body, but most were thrusts that didn’t miss.
“She was stabbed in the back as well as the front. Clearly a frenzied attack-far more strikes than were necessary to cause her death. Any one of a number of these would have done the job handily.”
“Defensive wounds?” Mercer asked.
I picked up a handful of the Polaroids to follow Kirschner’s commentary. I had seen Gemma Dogen’s face responding to camera flashes at the celebratory events caught in the photographs on her office shelves. Now I studied the same features-colorless, expressionless, lifeless-as they rested on the head support atop the autopsy table.
“None at all. But if you look closely at the Polaroids of her wrists, you’ll see some faint markings. They’ll show up much more clearly on the actual photographs we took.”
I found the two close-ups of Dogen’s lower arms and noticed the linear red discolorations.
“She was obviously restrained at some point, and I would presume that happened-along with the gag, which was left in place-beforethe stabbing began. I would doubt that she had any opportunity to resist the knife attack.
“The restraints might have been the same kind of material as the cloth the killer used to gag her. Twisted into narrow strips and wound around her wrists, they would have caused the marks that you see here but not have broken the skin.”
Chapman swigged a mouthful from his soda can. “D’you have a chance to look over that strip from the gag, Doc?”
“It’s in the lab now for analysis, but I saw it when they brought the body in. You’ll get a definitive answer later, but it looked to me like ordinary hospital-issue bed linen, cut into long pieces. Could have come from any patient room, supply closet, delivery service, or even the laundry.”
“Make a note for me please, Mercer. I assume the lieutenant has someone checking the laundry staff on the list with all the other employees, but I never even thought of all the types of deliverymen who are in and out of there every day.”
“They’re on it, Coop. Laundry, food, medical supplies, flowers, gift baskets, balloons-it’s endless. We’re talking at least several thousand transients.”
Chapman had wiped his hands and was standing over my shoulder, pointing out puncture wounds as I continued to sort through the snapshots. He asked Kirschner, “So if you had to reconstruct the events with what you know now, how do you figure it happened?”
“I can only speculate at this point, Mike. You know that. I assume whoever did this, whether it started as a burglary, or a prowler looking for a victim, came prepared. He had the weapon, he had the strips of cloth, and he probably had a purpose.
“I’d have to guess that Dogen was surprised by the attacker and overcome immediately. That woman was in fantastic condition. The muscles in her thighs and calves could have been from someone half her age. The fact that there aren’t any defensive wounds on her hands suggests she never had the opportunity to struggle.”
“Any idea about what time the assault could have taken place?”
“Tougher than usual. Obviously, we know exactly what time she died, since it was after she was found by the watchman. Any doctor would tell you that she couldn’t have survived these wounds. I’m sure she was unconscious while the killer was still striking at her, and I’d also bet that when he left herhe had assumed she was dead. It’s one of those medical oddities that she hung on for as long as she did, whether it was thirty minutes or thirty hours.
“The collapsed lung gave out quickly and completely. The other one must have acted like a slow leak. Mike told me that you all thought at the scene that she may have come to for a brief moment and used up the remaining oxygen supply in an effort to move herself. It’s possible.”
“With enough energy to drag her body across the room to the door?”
“My clinical answer to that would have to be no. But every day we see impossible things happen when the body is in extremis. Yes, Gemma Dogen might have summoned the strength for one last shot at saving herself. There’s no medical explanation for it. Absolutely none.”
“Chet, did Mike tell you about the, well, sort of squiggle on the floor where the body was found? I mean, in the blood.”
Mike was still behind me as I spoke and tousled my hair to indicate his dismissal of my idea.
“Cooper thinks the deceased was trying to talk to us.”
Kirschner’s eyes met mine as he nodded slightly, willing to consider the prospect. “I assume you’ve got crime scene photos to show what you’re thinking about, right?”
“Yeah. We should have a couple of sets by this evening, Doc. I’ll shoot ‘em down to you.”
“May I?” Kirschner reached across to pick up some of the autopsy Polaroids. He held them up close to his face looking for the detail he needed to refresh his memory. “Obviously, I’ll be able to show you this better when our own body shots are printed later today, but the blood pattern on her right index finger is consistent with your theory.
“Keep in mind, there was an awful lot of blood here, even on her hands and arms. I’ll get to that in a minute, when we talk about why she was untied. But thereis a different sort of coating on that finger, either from dragging herself through some of the pooled blood or-I guess it just never occurred to me-by intentionally putting her finger in the blood, like to draw something. I’d like to see your pictures before I jump to any conclusions that suggest she was writing.
“I’m surprised you’re such a doubter, Chapman. Wasn’t it you who had the case with me a couple of months ago? The guy who was shot six times in the back on a subway platform, but ran up two flights of stairs and onto the street ‘til he found a phone booth to make a call. Then he collapsed and died.”
“Yeah, ‘Lucky Louie’ Barsky, the loan shark. Last gasp for a phoner to his mother, to tell her she could live off whatever she could find in the shoe box marked ‘12D Black Croco Loafer’ on the third shelf of his bedroom closet. Lucky for him he survived to make the call. Unlucky for Mom, I was there with a search warrant before she could find a stepladder. His ex-girlfriend had ratted on him and knew where the dough was stashed. I guess miracles do happen, Doc.”
Mercer brought us back to Dogen’s killing. “So you think she was untiedafter the stabbing?”
“No bindings were found at the scene, isn’t that right? Only the gag. So after she was disabled-whether that was with the first couple of thrusts or after all of them-it would seem that he untied her then and moved her to the floor.”
Mike was seated at the table again, shaking his head back and forth. “So he rapes her while she’s unconscious and bleeding like a stuck pig from some, if not all, of these wounds?” He leaned back in his chair, then it dropped forward with a crashing noise under his weight as he pounded both of his fists on the table. “Can you believe that some perverted sicko gets sexually aroused by the sight of a bloody corpse? I’ll never understand your end of this business, Mercer, I swear it. How does a guy get it up after he’s mutilated and savaged a woman’s body? I swear, there should be a death penalty all its own for this kind of crime, and I’d be the executioner. Dammit.”
Kirschner’s even voice picked up the narrative. “What I’m about to say doesn’t make this crime any better, Mike, but perhaps your killer wasn’t as stimulated as he thought he might be. It’s pretty clear to me, the way Mike described the position of Dogen’s body, the removal of her underwear, and the lifting of her skirt to expose her genitals, that some kind of sexual assault was contemplated or attempted.
“But it wasn’t completed. No sign of seminal fluid, neither on the body nor within the vaginal vault. No sperm. I did swabbings of the vaginal and anal orifices, and you’ll get lab results on those, but I think we’ll come up with a negative.”